The Confession - Charles Todd [91]
But she said only, “I’m glad my father didn’t know. It’s for the best. And if there’s any truth to what Rector was telling me, they’ve already met, haven’t they?”
He said, “I’m sure they have.” Remembering his conversation with Dr. Baker, he asked, “I saw those barrow-like graves in the back. They’re unusual. Plague victims?”
She stared at him, her eyes wide, then said, “I wouldn’t know.”
But he thought she did.
It was a long and silent drive to Tilbury, where they took the ferry across to Gravesend. He found a cab to convey them to the hospital and sent a message to Inspector Adams as well.
By the time they had found someone to escort them down to the cellar, Inspector Adams came in, frowning as he saw Rutledge with Abigail Barber.
“Your note asked me to meet you here?”
“Thank you for coming. Mrs. Barber, this is Inspector Adams. He had made every effort to learn the identity of the man brought in by the Thames boatmen. Otherwise we would have had no way of knowing that he was your brother.”
“Mrs. Barber,” Adams said in acknowledgment, then added, “Are you sure you wish to go through with this? It can be an unsettling experience.”
“Did he suffer?” It was a question she hadn’t asked Rutledge.
“According to the doctor who examined the—your brother, he did not. He wouldn’t have known what had happened.”
“Well, then, I expect it was better than dying of that tumor.”
They took her back then. Rutledge had already asked an orderly to see that the body was presentable and that no other corpses were in the room.
As the door opened, he watched as Abigail Barber squared her shoulders, as if bracing herself as she followed Inspector Adams into the morgue. It was chilly and the light was glaring pools in the dimness, but she walked resolutely to the table where a body lay under a freshly ironed sheet.
Inspector Adams asked, “Are you ready, Mrs. Barber?”
“Yes,” she answered stoically. But Rutledge put a hand on her shoulder, as comfort.
Adams pulled back the sheet. She flinched. “It’s Ben,” she said, and then tentatively reached out to touch her brother’s face, drawing back quickly at the coldness of the flesh. “He’s a man, isn’t he? He was a boy when he left us to go to Thetford. Now he looks very much like Joseph.” After a moment, she leaned down, as if to whisper in his ear. Adams turned aside to offer her a little privacy. And then she straightened.
“I want to take him home,” she said.
Adams glanced over her head at Rutledge, who nodded once.
“Yes, all right, I shall see that the paperwork is completed. There’s a good man here in Gravesend. The—undertaker. He’ll take care of the rest.”
“Thank you.” Before they could move, she reached out and drew the sheet back over her brother’s face, her hands gentle. And then she was walking quickly out of the room, as if she couldn’t bear it any longer.
Rutledge thanked Adams and followed her out of the hospital and half a block down the street. She stopped there suddenly, as if she couldn’t go any farther, and broke down, crying inconsolably. He put a hand again on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.
When she lifted her head finally, to his shock her eyes were blazing with anger.
“If you know where Cynthia Farraday lives, you tell her for me. If she ever shows her face in Furnham again—if she even thinks of coming to the service for my brother—I’ll kill her myself.”
He summoned a cab, and without a word she got into it.
It was very late when he delivered Mrs. Barber to her home in Furnham. Her husband, peering anxiously out the window, saw them arrive and hurried out to open the motorcar door for her. He was about to demand where she had been when he caught the look that Rutledge gave him. Instead he said, as if it had been what he intended in the first